Enhancing, Provocative and Future Tense

Main menu

Monthly Archives: January 2017

Trump’s victory hit me like a blow to the head, totally disrupting my thoughts, feelings, and reactions: There was no way I could continue to write blogs focused on our positive prospects for tomorrow after the unmitigated catastrophe of the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States.

Some months later, I still cannot see anything which will make life more meaningful emerging under Trump. This is a turning point for the US, but personally, from my individual perspective, it was and remains a disaster, like having been in a serious car crash.

I still cannot accept that such a large part of the American electorate failed to recognize Trump as a vain, politically inexperienced, deceptive, limited, insecure, lacking in empathy and pathologically unsuited con-man.

Trump had been exposed as being unfit to hold office by the entirety of the American press. (I described him as a 21st Century Satan in one of my blogs a few months ago.) The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal and the editorial pages of all the leading newspapers across the country steadily warned against him to no avail. No point for me now to continue the loud chorus of printed dismay with further denunciations in my blog.

Beyond their frustrated expectations of a better life, what could have persuaded so many American voters to endorse such an exceedingly unsuitable candidate? Were they blind? Out of their minds? Physically, on my first viewing years ago, I had immediately found his face revolting. Many of the people I know cannot stand the sight of him on their TV sets and yet the flood of truly vile items released about Trump and by him, has failed to arouse doubts in his admirers. They seemed to be saying at every chance: “He’s real. He’s just like us” and then they repeat “He’ll Make America Great Agin.”(sic) Such chants speedily downgrade into shouting their stored hatreds and anger. Their disgusting behavior, reminded me of the way Germans had expressed their venom three generations ago, and had the unwelcome effect of hyper-activating my bile.

As a refugee from Nazi occupied France in 1941, I entered America as a youth who desired rapid assimilation: I immediately treasured the optimistic and positive spirit of my classmates in New York. Intuitively I felt that the political attitudes of Americans offered a rational, generous and hopeful prospect for mankind. When I went to Harvard, purportedly surrounded by “the brightest and the best”, I came to take for granted the exchange of thoughts, the examination of given assumptions, (such as understanding, insight and acceptance), as representing a naturally intelligent way of life. This educational preparation received a few shocks during a stretch in the US Army as a “Private, third class.” Basic training is focused on following orders, not on discussing Plato or Jefferson. However, I did come to appreciate the social equality of my fellow recruits.

My belief in the fundamental American values was strengthened in the years which followed as a writer and researcher for Congressional-Quarterly/Editorial Research in Washington, DC. I enjoyed asking questions at JFK’s White House press conferences. Such experience furthered my engagement in the search for truth, in factual reporting, and in expanding the understanding of my readers. I developed a belief, however misguided as it may have been, in the common-sense of the American people. At times, as in the elections of Richard Nixon and later in that of George W. Bush, I began to have my doubts. These were electrified by the shocking antics of Donald Trump.

Was my entire outlook on life and on the premises by which I had embraced the American way of life erroneous or worthless? Have knowledge, rationality, intelligence and memory all become irrelevant in this new and most unwelcome era?

The long-term prospects are not good for a nation which is now led by a POTUS who has never held any position in service of the nation, who has skillfully avoided taxes, has no understanding of the necessity of compromise in the democratic process, is unable to accept criticism or to listen to the voice of others and ultimately appears unable to recognize the difference between truth and fiction.

All too many Americans seem to have succumbed to the misguiding power of celebrity, to the even greater power of money, and to the digital propaganda of Twitter. Millions of Americans have obviously become unreceptive to examining lies and falsehood, at the same time that they were rejecting expertise, debate, intelligence and experience. Serious analysis and criticism are no longer to be regarded as welcome or even essential. As a number of writers on The New York Times, from David Brooks on the right to Paul Krugman on the left, have noted: hypocrisy now flourishes in America. The evangelical believers and conservative Republicans who swore by their religious tenets and balanced budgets, simply abandoned their fundamental beliefs for the sake of political power.

The new “Age of the Deal,” leaves me reeling. Where to turn? What to do? Should I give up my American citizenship? There is no way I can align my writings or outlook to counter-act the unending flow of brainless Tweets. What has happened to conscience, to values, to empathy and to cultural traditions in this misbegotten administration?

I felt and continue to feel that the response of the Congressional Democrats has been unacceptably feeble. It is without true fire in the belly. The exception of the heroic John Lewis, who stood up bravely to contest the validity of the election, was not matched by his Party. I regarded the inauguration not as a patriotic event but as an occasion to mourn the passing of much of the democratic dream of a better future. Trumpism seems to be heralding a period of denial in which the environmental threat to our planet is likely to accelerate.

I cannot see the point of joining voices to the powerful bandwagon against Trump. I feel there is little place now for a blog which worked towards a positive exploration of our future possibilities. I shall try to continue to explore the more positive aspects and values of the world around us at a time when the stream of executive orders from the White House are spreading anxiety and gloom. I trust that correspondents like Roger Cohen will continue their exposure of the contradictions and rantings of a pathologically deranged Head of State.

I recognize that the best I can do in this chaotic period is to alter my focus: Instead of continuing to suggest social and economic alternatives, I shall explore cultural aspects of society much as I did in Paris decades ago for Newsweek. I hope that on occasion this will distract and uplift your spirits as much as they may mine.